There exist today many styles of input devices for performing operations in a computer system. The operations generally correspond to moving a cursor and/or making selections on a display screen. By way of example, the input devices may include buttons or keys, mice, trackballs, touch pads, joy sticks, touch screens and the like. Touch pads and touch screens (collectively “touch surfaces”) are becoming increasingly popular because of their ease and versatility of operation as well as to their declining price. Touch surfaces allow a user to make selections and move a cursor by simply touching the surface, which may be a pad or the display screen, with a finger, stylus, or the like. In general, the touch surface recognizes the touch and position of the touch and the computer system interprets the touch and thereafter performs an action based on the touch.
Of particular interest are touch screens. Various types of touch screens are described in applicant's co-pending patent application Ser. No. 10/840,862, entitled “Multipoint Touchscreen,” filed May 6, 2004, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. As noted therein, touch screens typically include a touch panel, a controller and a software driver. The touch panel is generally a clear panel with a touch sensitive surface. The touch panel is positioned in front of a display screen so that the touch sensitive surface covers the viewable area of the display screen. The touch panel registers touch events and sends these signals to the controller. The controller processes these signals and sends the data to the computer system. The software driver translates the touch events into computer events.
There are several types of touch screen technologies including resistive, capacitive, infrared, surface acoustic wave, electromagnetic, near field imaging, etc. Each of these devices has advantages and disadvantages that are taken into account when designing or configuring a touch screen. One problem found in these prior art technologies is that they are only capable of reporting a single point even when multiple objects are placed on the sensing surface. That is, they lack the ability to track multiple points of contact simultaneously. In resistive and traditional capacitive technologies, an average of all simultaneously occurring touch points are determined and a single point which falls somewhere between the touch points is reported. In surface wave and infrared technologies, it is impossible to discern the exact position of multiple touch points that fall on the same horizontal or vertical lines due to masking. In either case, faulty results are generated.
These problems are particularly problematic in handheld devices, such as tablet PCs, where one hand is used to hold the tablet and the other is used to generate touch events. For example, as shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, holding a tablet 2 causes the thumb 3 to overlap the edge of the touch sensitive surface 4 of the touch screen 5. As shown in FIG. 1A, if the touch technology uses averaging, the technique used by resistive and capacitive panels, then a single point that falls somewhere between the thumb 3 of the left hand and the index finger 6 of the right hand would be reported. As shown in FIG. 1B, if the technology uses projection scanning, the technique used by infrared and surface acoustic wave panels, it is hard to discern the exact vertical position of the index finger 6 due to the large vertical component of the thumb 3. The tablet 2 can only resolve the patches shown in gray. In essence, the thumb 3 masks out the vertical position of the index finger 6.
While virtually all commercially available touch screen based systems available today provide single point detection only and have limited resolution and speed, other products available today are able to detect multiple touch points. Unfortunately, these products only work on opaque surfaces because of the circuitry that must be placed behind the electrode structure. Examples of such products include the Fingerworks series of touch pad products. Historically, the number of points detectable with such technology has been limited by the size of the detection circuitry.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is a multi-touch capable touch screen controller that facilitates the use of transparent touch sensors and provides for a conveniently integrated package.